Updates and changes and interesting things are a-coming.

Or I hope interesting things are a-coming.  Oh, do I ever hope!

First of all, I'll be launching a web site soon.  Actually, I'll be launching four web sites soon.

One, a dedicated dot-com for this pen name, with the ability to purchase books directly from the site rather than having to follow links all over the Interwebs, as well as this blog and some other fun stuff.

Two, the same for the other pen name, which, after gathering and assessing much reader feedback over the past year of using it, will be changing very slightly.  Just enough to maximize the name's effectiveness as a marketing tool. 

Three, a site for the press I am starting, an LLC which will function as an umbrella for the two pen names and will also, eventually, offer certain services to other indie authors and to small presses.  If I'm going to go all indie on this book stuff, I'm going to do it right, with a company name and a real presence in the book world, with something of value to other authors.  I love the give-back atmosphere of the indie community, and I want to be a bigger part of it.

Four, something I can't talk about yet because it's in such early developmental stages.  Well, I can say this:  I'm starting a podcast.  I won't be the only one involved, either.  More details to come as I hammer them out, but I'm really looking forward to this bit.  I think it will be so much fun, not only for me and the friends who will be working on it with me, but for listeners.  I hate Twitter, I am not that fond of Facebook; I want a more effective, more entertaining, more multi-media way to let readers get to know me.  I think this is the answer.  We'll see.

And then there's this other thing that's going on with my independent book stuff...something I really can't talk about just yet, but is perhaps one of the most exciting things that can happen to a book fan-turned-creative type.  Something that involves a fan letter I wrote when I was nine, and never sent.  My hope is that this other thing will lead to a booming business -- maybe one that will let me quit the day job sooner than I'd planned -- but even if it doesn't, even if it leads to nothing, it is so cool I just can't get over it.

So how's that for vagueness?  I hope to have the web sites up and running by the end of the month, and with luck the Mystery Project/Podcast Thing will be going around the first part of January.  Stay tuned, my droogs.

Missed the interview?

Here it is!  Plus, in the comments section I elaborate on my thoughts on the current state of the publishing industry...and there's more blogging on that topic to come.  Enjoy!

Winter white

You came into the kitchen as I made my coffee, walking like a ghost, drifting and tenuous.  All your angles were softened by sleep.  White t-shirt (stained), white longjohns, and, for no reason I could tell, your black dress socks pulled up to your knees.  Your limbs are as thin and stark now as a bird's legs.  This has been a wet winter, not snowy, thank god, and the constant cloud has leeched away all your warm golden hues.  In your newly pale skin your eyes are bluer than feathers, scribed all around by the same faint lines I noticed on my own face when I turned thirty.  We are watching each other get older, get paler, get lighter, fainter.  You apologized sheepishly for the stain on your shirt.  I laughed and poured the creamer into my coffee, smiled down at your bird feet on the tiles, and when I kissed your pale face I could smell on your skin the last warmth of fall going, going.  When I come home tonight I will fall asleep without you, and the room will be cold.  Some time in the night I will wake and your arms will be around me, brooding me against your pigeon chest.  I will be warm and soft as caramel in the sun, and my feet will be tangled in yours like a sparrow's in birdlime.  What a beautiful, happy trap you have laid for me.  I am glad each time it catches me.

Lady writer on the TV radio

I'll be doing an interview tomorrow on the radio show Ask An Atheist, broadcasting out of Tacoma.  We'll be talking about Baptism for the Dead (my novel, not the Mormon practice) as well as the general topic of atheism in literature.  3 p.m. PST on Sunday.  You can stream the program from the show's website (link above) if you're not in the south Puget Sound area, and the show is also archived as a podcast if you have other plans on Sunday afternoon.

It's my first spoken interview about one of my books, so I'm a little nervous and a lot curious and I plan on drinking lots of coffee before and lots of wine after.

There is also a post-show get-together at the Overtime Bar in Tacoma.  If you're in the area, stop in and say hi to me and the whole AAA crew.